LABOUR CONSIDERS GIVING UP NATIONAL PARTY STATUS
COWARDS flinch and traitors sneer, according to the Labour Party’s anthem The Red Flag. Yet discussions going on within Jeremy Corbyn’s party suggest there will be plenty of flinching within the ranks when the next general election comes.
Senior Labour figures are considering that the party will not contest a seat it has no hope of winning at the national poll expected in 2022.
It could be the first time in living memory the party fails to put up candidates in virtually every mainland constituency at a general election. A motion proposing a change in the party rules allowing the move is being prepared for debate at the Labour conference in Liverpool this September.
Concentrating on fighting winnable seats might help conserve the party’s dwindling election war chest. Figures released by the Electoral Commission this week showed that Mr Corbyn’s party is lagging far behind the Tories in collecting donations for the fighting fund.
Labour accepted just £1.49million in the first three months of this year while £4.7million flowed into Tory coffers. Mr Corbyn’s hard-Left leadership has repulsed many wealthy former donors, leaving the party more reliant than ever on trade union cash.
And some Labour activists argue that keeping out of the fight in some constituencies could deny the Tories seats by reducing the split in the anti-Conservative vote. With Labour candidates standing aside Lib Dem or even Green Party candidates might have a better chance in some areas, they claim.
Yet in shying away from the fight a significant number of seats would deny a full democratic choice to thousands of voters.
It would also be a betrayal of the dream of James Keir Hardie and the other founders of the Labour Party who yearned to get workingclass MPs elected to Parliament because they felt the old Liberal Party failed to represent their interests.
The fact the idea is even being discussed is yet another sign that, under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour no longer aspires to be a national party of government and is fast turning into a metropolitan protest movement.